It's always nice to try something new and in that spirit
many will feel the urge to jump into a quality action sim,
now and then. Jet Fighter: Full Burn does a fine job of
providing exactly that: it's a neat thrill ride for the
action-inclined and, if you have some horsepower, runs as
smooth as pantyhose under 3Dfx.
Unfortunately, fans of the weightier Jane's or DID sims
will not find enough complexity in JFFB to stoke their
combative interest, to say the least. But all the same,
entry-level simmers and virtual aces fed up with manuals
denser than LSAT guides are sure to enjoy what this game
offers. Even haggard warhorses out there may find this sim
to have a certain charm. I did.
Let's begin with the cool: strap on a F/A-18 and head out
on a free flight for some low-level barnstorming. Observe
(under 3Dfx) awesome framerates as you sweep through
valleys and over terrain on par with EF2000 V2.0. On the
subject of eye-candy, this sim delivers big by having very
nice object-detail, visible ordnance, and explosion
effects, all of which I found surreally real. Panning
around your jet you get an eyeful of mean-looking Maverick
and AMRAAM-enough to make any MiG pilot whimper … a
role which, incidentally, this game allows you to perform.
Choose your side carefully and you'll find yourself flying
seat-of-the-pants a brand new Mikoyan MiG-42 - a
weird-looking delta-wing evolution of the MiG-29 equipped
with a pair of forward canards, presumably for shortening
take-offs and enhancing maneuverability or something. It's
a stealthy multirole plane that handles much like the F-22
in the game, another available option.
Each of these planes is reputed to boast its own inherent
advantages within the game, undoubtedly having to do with
their sneakiness, radar-absorbency and supercruise ability.
I was thrilled to find a good old meat and potatoes F/A-18
with its time-tested engines and combat legacy. The plane
has real personality and, in JFFB, ridiculous power under
the hood and its customary lethal attack-suite - bombs,
Mavericks, M-61 Vulcan.
All right, I can't help mentioning this: When watching your
plane in the external you'll see your little pilot dude
turn his head to track your position, then look forward
again as he resumes the task of flight. God! He even makes
glances over at you while he's busy maneuvering.
Also nicely handled is this rushing sensation you get
during carrier launch. You really sense the raw speed of
the sudden stroke. The deck of said CVN is appropriately
bustling with Hornets and their navalized F22 brethren
which crowd the scant flight deck; jet-blast deflectors
bear the grime of a thousand launchings. Too bad we don't
have little ordnance crews and Greenshirts running around:
guess we'll have to wait a while longer for that feature to
appear in tomorrow's sims. Smoke and, in particular,
flares, caught my eye and are well done.
This game gives you a great sense of speed during low-level
flight - a la JSF. The reasons for this are twofold:
terrain is mountainous and easily gained with the
exaggerated thrust of your (Hornet's) twin General Electric
F404s. In addition, if you happen to have a wingman, he'll
cruise somewhat forward and right of your plane, giving you
a fine sense of speed and a nice atmospheric view of the
terrain you're whisking over - even if the formation itself
is a bit doctrinaire, it pays off by being more fun.
JFFB has a full array of options for the newcomer. From the
main screen you may choose to train for the U.S. Navy or
for Mother Russia, connect for some multiplayer co-op or
head-to-head, or jump straight into a campaign. The
training missions are for the most part very easy for
someone with simulation experience, but surprises do lurk
in the seemingly benign airspace. During one of the
ground-attack missions I found myself all at once amidst
dark cloudlets of 57mm flak; these would thunk the fuselage
and jar the screen in what I felt was a neat effect.
On the other hand, SAM evasion throughout the sim was
disappointingly straightforward: punching chaff invariably
broke the lock of a SAM. Or, failing to detect a SAM, there
was little chance of surviving even one hit, just lawn dart
time. Nevertheless, the skies were appropriately dangerous
during that ingress phase.
Training involved such menial tasks as landing on the
carrier, blowing up a huge factory with one bomb, or
shooting down a multimillion dollar drone with a 'winder.
These missions were well set up and helpful at easing you
into the sim. (That's not to say I didn't get wasted on
some of the training missions. Even virtual jet-jocks have
overinflated egos, I guess.)
One problem I had with the game concerned the cockpits: by
today's standards these seemed rather Spartan - both in
their appearance and in their functionality. Graphically,
they didn't measure up to the beauty of the world beyond
them: both the F/A-18 and the MiG forward views had huge
blocky framing pieces over the HUD (to represent the canopy
structure) which, while closer to real life, substantially
limit the vision of the occupant.
Fortunately, you can toggle the cockpit off and rely on a
radar display next to the HUD for targeting, and fly with a
clean forward view. The F-22 doesn't have this problem, but
I don't like making the compromise in the F/A-18 and the
MiG.
Moreover, the MFDs in all the cockpits can be zoomed, (much
like JSF) but their contents have a nasty pixelated look up
close, even in the highest available resolution (640 x
480). The information portrayed there doesn't turn out to
be all that helpful anyway, as the HUD already indicates
waypoints and targeting info, eliminating any need for MFDs
in the first place. Perhaps it is because they are so
seldom used that the game's designers elected to place less
emphasis on detailing the displays. The heart of this sim
is the campaign, which, fascinatingly, can be played from
either the U.S. or the Russian side. (In effect, you're
getting two very different campaigns.) The game ships with
a hefty four CDs and - lucky for us - not because of a huge
installation size, but because there are a large number of
interactive cut scenes adorning your campaign experience.
After your first (U.S.) briefing you find yourself in the
claustrophobic halls of a carrier, which you can "walk
around" by entering and passing through designated areas.
Places you'll end up include the briefing area, the hangar,
a C.O.'s office, even a cramped cabin for your
Maverickesque alter ego. (I found this process of
navigation very much like the wonderful Discovery Wings
series of CDs which tour certain airbases and stuff.) Now,
briefings and ordnance selection are nothing on the order
of those in Jane's F-15, but you do have a range of payload
choices for different missions. Then you'll wind up
"talking" to some ordnance chief or someone about the
ongoing war effort . . .
In fact, so much time in this sim is spent observing the
accompanying movies that I feel my abilities as a film
critic are being called to the fore. As a rule, I find
these little acting vignettes in games cheesy in the
extreme, but undoubtedly my twelve-year-old brother would
get a real bang from the whole thing. (In that vein, I
think it's worth mentioning that the Jetfighter series is
aimed at fun-seeking or entry-level or younger simmers, and
as such, sports a mild learning-curve but mucho fun for
said newbie.)
Having said that, I found the bulk of the Russian campaign
movie -inexplicably - pretty convincing: your alter ego in
the Russian Air Force is Alexei Sokolov, a role that is
played with considerable panache and range of facial
expression. Alexei is shown in an early scene with his
family - very humanly - and later with his commander
lamenting the high cost of beef in their post-Cold War
economy.
Then there's a scene where his wizened ground crewman
expresses how sadly lacking are their ordnance supplies
(never mind that he's flying a super stealthy
thrust-vectoring MiG-42 which cost a mere eight-bazillion).
OK, so the premise is a little far-fetched (You attack
Norway for control of a massive oil supply in the Barents
Sea, inflaming NATO countries who want that oil too,
damnit.) And the President of the United States is named,
well … Bob White. But all the same I found the
Russian air base pretty atmospheric, with its killboards
and shoddy living-quarters, its depressed grounds crewmen
and plain decor.
The campaigns are not dynamic in the sense that we've come
to appreciate but the missions are surprising and
replayable. When you fail you'll be given the chance to hop
right back into your MiG and go for the gusto …
again. You won't feel like enrolling in a twelve step
program after failing the mission because of all this
superhuman effort required to reach a target area, only to
be swatted from the air by a zip gun before you could drop
your bombs. This sim has reasonable flight-times punctuated
with quick dogfights and, if you're shot down - no really
dire consequences result - you'll just be eager to try, try
again.
Both air-to-air and air-to-ground combat are plain vanilla:
Hit "T" to designate your next target and let loose a
missile. While straightforward and pretty limited, the
wingman AI looks solid: your dudes attack when you tell
them to; when you're flying straight toward a mountain,
your wingman will maneuver to safety instead of
automotonically Bonzaiing the hillside. I found this
feature pleasing.
In addition, there's a somewhat effective padlock, called
the tactical view, which allows you to follow those bandits
vying for your six. Close range dogfights occur often and
are quite fun. The flight model for each plane is
exaggerated, but realism is not a priority here. I'll put
it this way: sustained 9 g turns are both feasible and
tactically advisable if you want to stay alive. (One
exterior view showed my Hornet corkscrewing around in turns
about 200 feet in diameter.) There are a range of settings
making the flight model more toothsome for the advanced
user who may choose to enable "realistic" landings, ground
turbulence, and control surface damage. Speed bleed results
from heavy maneuvering and you will stall - just remember
those are five-stage afterburners you've got and you can
whip the ponies when 16,000 pounds of thrust just isn't up
to task.
All was not well under the Voodoo 2 card I was using, not
in terms of framerates (which were exceptionally good) but
because I experienced some system freeze-ups during both
campaigns. Happily a patch is already available at the
Mission Studios site which addresses this issue: the game's
audience ought to pick it up. Voodoo 2 owners should enjoy
a passing view that is smooth as silk, a genuinely
lightning-fast sim under 3Dfx. I would not recommend the
game to those without 3Dfx-based accelerators, however, as
framerates and resolution degrade substantially.
Some areas that might need future attention in the game
include the effectiveness of long-range missiles: too often
I found myself missing a bandit that was absolutely
locked-up and my AIM-120 (or at closer range, an AIM-9)
would go whistling past. It's reasonable that you would
miss from time to time, but even when the bandit is at
about twelve to twenty nautical miles, well within the
AIM-120's effective envelope, clean misses are observed.
Also, some kind of "target view" is in order to espy what
the enemy is throwing your way, and there are a lot of neat
planes modeled on the JFFB battlefield. I, for one, would
enjoy sight-seeing some of the Saab Viggens and A-6
Intruders now and then. Last but not least, more
complicated damage modeling is in order so that one SAM hit
will not always knock out your engines: I realize these
things are deadly but … oftentimes one hit alone is
enough to put your aircraft down for the count. Evasion by
quick maneuvering doesn't seem to be an option, in these
cases. Finding yourself out of chaff, you almost always
meet your fate.
Overall, however, this game is quite good at what it tries
to be: fun. Even if it is a sim that's quick to learn in
the ATF sense, the less-grizzled should appreciate the
playable missions offered here. Little brothers everywhere
are likely recipients of this game, while their older
siblings will for now, I surmise, stick with F-15. Core Rating: 40
Gameplay: 80
Graphics: 85
Sound: 65
Intelligence/AI: 70
User-Interface/ Mission Planner: 75
Fun Factor: 85
Learning Curve: ½ Hour
Overall Rating: 80
Ed. Note: The "core rating" is a scale to give the player
some idea of what kind of gameplay experience to expect. In
general, the "core" rating reveals how "hardcore" of a
player the game will appeal to. Factors may include maximum
challenge, perceived realism, control-use difficulty,
complexity of AI and the depth of gameplay in determining
the rating. For information on the "Core Rating" click the
link above. Also note that some users have reported
installation problems with Full Burn.
